fallingcow:bunner: Socialism, capitalism, and a couple of other isms being touted, fought over and stapled to various nation states are not absolutes. They are not all in one, One True Ways™. They are useful components of something that, when stewarded by honest man, mostly work to the benefit of everybody. Until we get a call from Diogenes saying "Touchdown!", it's largely a moot point whether or not you subscribe to ANY of them but please know that if you subscribe, all in, patch-sewn-on-my-coat to ANY of them exclusively, you've already missed the part where our ideas are supposed to serve us, not give other men leverage to make us serve them.

Pft, why don't you go blow Stalin, you commie. The pure free market is man's natural state and it's immoral to subscribe to any other system. The free market existed before government and totally doesn't require an act of collective creation to exist in any meaningful or useful form, so government and society have no authority to attempt to steer its economic power for the benefit of the general public, in even the tiniest way. Furthermore, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, it is in fact utterly impossible for a government to take such action without objectively causing far more harm than good.

Jesus, It's like you haven't even read anything by Ayn Rand, or you have but were tainted by some assuredly-Communist courses in basic logic, political economy, or political philosophy first. They never read Rand in those because she's way smarter than all the Communists they do read, like Adam Smith and Milton Friedman.

/ What sane people in the US are greeted with any time they try to participate in political discussion.// Not from everyone, but always from someone./// Especially on Slashdot; you think political discussions here are deranged... yeesh.

I have too read Ayn Rand. I own an autographed copy of "Dagney the Douchebag Goes Quantity Surveying"!

bunner:Socialism, capitalism, and a couple of other isms being touted, fought over and stapled to various nation states are not absolutes. They are not all in one, One True Ways™. They are useful components of something that, when stewarded by honest man, mostly work to the benefit of everybody. Until we get a call from Diogenes saying "Touchdown!", it's largely a moot point whether or not you subscribe to ANY of them but please know that if you subscribe, all in, patch-sewn-on-my-coat to ANY of them exclusively, you've already missed the part where our ideas are supposed to serve us, not give other men leverage to make us serve them.

Pft, why don't you go blow Stalin, you commie. The pure free market is man's natural state and it's immoral to subscribe to any other system. The free market existed before government and totally doesn't require an act of collective creation to exist in any meaningful or useful form, so government and society have no authority to attempt to steer its economic power for the benefit of the general public, in even the tiniest way. Furthermore, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, it is in fact utterly impossible for a government to take such action without objectively causing far more harm than good.

Jesus, It's like you haven't even read anything by Ayn Rand, or you have but were tainted by some assuredly-Communist courses in basic logic, political economy, or political philosophy first. They never read Rand in those because she's way smarter than all the Communists they do read, like Adam Smith and Milton Friedman.

/ What sane people in the US are greeted with any time they try to participate in political discussion.// Not from everyone, but always from someone./// Especially on Slashdot; you think political discussions here are deranged... yeesh.

Elected in 2009, Mujica spent the 1960s and 1970s as part of the Uruguayan guerrilla Tupamaros, a leftist armed group inspired by the Cuban revolution.

Nice to see he didn't turn into a nasty, selfish dictator.

Does he dress up for official visits to the UN or Washington? I sense a sitcom in the making. He's the poor president of a country nobody has heard of. She's the Secretary of State of the richest country in the world. Tune in Click for this week's wacky hijinks.

miniflea:My wife is from Uruguay, and she's never met him but much of her family has. He had lunch with her grandmother a few weeks ago. Her father (who has also met him) could be his younger brother, they are in many ways cut from the same cloth.

Oman, Alaska you one more time to stop this for the sake of everyone India country. Costa Rica get richer and the poor man complains that Egpyt while we sit here making jokes about your mother's Djibouti. Syria's lee

TWX:AverageAmericanGuy: Too bad he's a communist. He seems like a good guy.

Honestly, if he's a Communist, he's the first Communist who has actually lived as a proletariat while holding the highest office in his nation that I've heard of, and one that I could respect for his beliefs even if I don't agree with them.

Though I'm not going to disagree with his perspective on the rat race most of us participate in. My wife and I have chosen to live below our means and we've watched friends and associates crash and burn when hit by comparatively minor setbacks while spending every dime trying to keep up with Madison Avenue's suggested lifestyle, and we've weathered it by actually figuring out what we want and moderating our acquisition of it. It's not much of a hardship to refrain from buying new TVs or new cars or new computers when what we have still works. I played that game for awhile, and I learned that regardless of how many new video cards I bought, there would always be a better one out shortly.

So, we buy things when we need them. We use tube TVs. My 'new' car six months ago is seventeen years old, though admittedly had only 6500 miles on it. Her laptop still has a built-in optical drive, but is a Thinkpad and will easily last another five years, probably more like eight tp ten. I replaced my T-Mobile G1 smartphone when the keyboard finally fully croaked. She replaced her analog cell phone when the provider started charging extra for analog service, and it probably would still work if there was service available.

Live for yourself, not just for appearance sake or because advertisers say to do something.

miniflea:AverageAmericanGuy: Too bad he's a communist. He seems like a good guy.

I may be asking a dumbass question here, but is this a troll account, or what?

My wife is from Uruguay, and she's never met him but much of her family has. He had lunch with her grandmother a few weeks ago. Her father (who has also met him) could be his younger brother, they are in many ways cut from the same cloth.

i'm pretty sure what you experienced was called a joke. lighten up a bit